Workshop 4.3: Friday afternoon
The Prince on the White Horse
Klaas FOKKINGA
De Fontein
Rick MATSER
Willem Alexander school
THE NETHERLANDS
Working on ones personal qualities / capabilities as teacher happens from two perspectives:
responsibility and development.
It shows of professionalism not to take for granted that your work as teacher is good and cannot be improved anymore. With other words: it's important to look at yourself from the outside inwards regularly and be critical towards your own functioning.
To watch yourself critical is almost the most difficult thing there is; or you're to optimistic or to pessimistic.
To criticise doesn't mean to point out mistakes but to weigh carefully what happens in the educational learning process in your class.
Again in other words; what should come first and do you really do the first things….first ?
The main question to ask yourself all the time is :
How can I improve myself?
This question does count all aspects of the educational learning process you have to deal with in your class.
In this workshop we lose ourselves in the pedagogical aspect of our work in primary school.
Our starting point is: teaching = educating.
Who wants to educate, must for a start, first watch him selves.
And that is sensible because you have yourself close by.
We'll have a look at the most characteristic qualities of the teacher who is also an educator
And you are an educator if you want it or not because pupils think in teachers, not in subjects!
This means education as regards to a solid and reliable content benefits by a good relationship between you and the pupil. Therefore it's very important you have in mind what goals you want to reach by "providing education".
The hand of the educator has five fingers. These five fingers stand for:
protecting, taking care of,passing on,leading in andinaugurating.
As teacher you can sit and wait if the relation-spark will leap over between you and the pupil but you can also manage it; to make it happen!
Children are from nature orientated (adjusted) on development and learning.
They are constantly engaged in increasing their knowledge, their comprehension and their skills. It seems they have an intrinsic motivation for learning.So motivation is a condition for learning. There are three conditions needed for that intrinsic motivation: competence, autonomy and relation. We focus on the basic-need relationship in conjunction with teachers behaviour in class management, interaction and instruction.
Never forget the ancient question in the European school pedagogical tradition:
What makes man to man?
A "one-liner" concerning relationship:
Bring the experience of the astonishment into your classroom.
To bring this one-liner intopractice you must have obtained pedagogical authority (educating authority) so that children see you (experience you) as a personal master.
The prince on the white horse / workshop Brdo, september 2003
Klaas Fokkinga & Rick Matser / /